


Writing Craft: The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing 2nd Edition

by Dessarious



Series: Writing Craft [2]
Category: Writing Craft
Genre: Books on Writing, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dessarious/pseuds/Dessarious
Summary: In this work I'll being going through the book chapter by chapter, summarizing and adding my thoughts and exercises. This book is articles by various authors so it gives a broad and varied view of different aspects of the craft.Cross Posted on Tumblr @dessarious
Series: Writing Craft [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622623





	1. Taming the Beast by N.M Kelby

The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing  
Chapter 1: Taming the Beast by N.M Kelby

In this article the author compares creating and refining your story ideas to training a dog. I’m going to leave out the metaphor and just give the bare bones of the advice.

The biggest take away from the first section is:  
“Ideas often start with boundless energy, vying for your attention. But when you get them on the page, they don’t always live up to how you thought they would be” pg. 5

This is a huge issue, especially for new writers. You finally get words on a page but immediately get discouraged because it’s not as good as it seemed in your head and/or your inner critic takes hold and trashes your efforts. (Whether that trashing is justified or not is a moot point) Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Before I get into this specific author’s take I want to throw out a couple ‘standard’ thoughts on the subject.

‘You can’t edit a blank page.’ It’s one of those truisms that make me want to bash my head into a wall whenever I encounter it, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Basically try to think of your writing, especially first drafts, as practice. You’re not going to start out perfect but the more you work on it the better you’ll get at it, and by extension the better the piece itself will get. If you come to the table thinking your writing needs to be perfect, you’re just setting yourself up for failure.

‘All art is a work in progress, even when it’s finished.’ I don’t think I’ve seen this stated anywhere but given the number of times I’ve seen authors complain about parts of their published works they wish they’d done differently, I’m just going to throw it out there. Perfection is unattainable and someone will always find fault in what you do. So don’t try and be perfect, try instead to a) be consistent and b) improve your vision. And what I mean by that is develop a writing routine that works for you and make sure when you write and edit you’re making the story clearer for the reader. For first drafts that’s simple because anything you write will be clearer than nothing. (okay, given some of the garbage that’s come out of my head that’s not strictly true but even bad writing is practice on the way to good writing so it’s still useful)

Establish a calm, centered mind

In this section the author gives their thoughts on creating your writing space, writing routine, and not siking yourself out.

“Nonexistent boundaries, unfocused expectations, and lack of routine are the writer’s downfall.” pg. 5

Okay, I’ll agree with this to a point. Especially when you’re first starting out developing your writing habits, and making sure the people around you respect that, can be crucial. However, don’t get so rigid that you can’t adapt to change. Shit happens and you may need to adjust either for life or because your writing needs themselves evolve and change. The best way for you to write right now, may not still be the best way in six months or a year. It’s best not to assume what does and doesn’t work for you now will always be the same. As to the part about expectations… that’s going to be very specific to each author. It’s good to have goals for your writing but if the thought of a specific word count or getting an entire chapter out stresses you out to the point you can’t write, chose a less concrete goal. Anything from I’ll spend at least ten minutes free writing or brainstorming and then see what I can get done on my current WIP to I’ll spend ten minutes thinking about ideas are completely valid. Yes, at some point you want to get words on paper, but forcing yourself to write on demand is a process and it’s usually a bad idea to frustrate yourself to the point you just give up.

The author makes some other points that I’ll summarize: Don’t panic, nothing’s perfect the first time around. Some writing days are better than others, it’s okay to take a break or sleep on it. Don’t place yourself in competitive situations while you’re working on a book. Don’t compare you WIP to the latest bestseller. Write from an authentic part of yourself. Set a pace that works for you and don’t compare it to others. (pgs. 5 & 6)

This is overall good advice in my opinion. The words ‘Don’t Panic’ always bring to mind Hitchers Guide to the Galaxy for me and it’s sound advice. Unless you’re working on a deadline there really isn’t a need to panic, and even then, all it’s likely to do is make things worse. 

Some writing days are better than others. This is true no matter who you are. It doesn’t have to mean that your actual writing is bad either. All this means is that some days you won’t be on your A game, at least not for the project you’re currently focusing on. If you need to step away, do it. If you need to work on something else, do that. If you need to completely rework something you already wrote, go for it. Don’t get upset if your brain won’t focus where you think it needs to be. Trust your subconscious to know when you need a breather.

Don’t place yourself in competitive situations. Okay, this one is person specific. Some people thrive off of competition while others shut down completely. You need to feel out what’s best for you but at the beginning it can be one more stressor that sets you up for failure. My suggestion would be to get into a seminormal writing habit before you add something like this into the mix, but again, everyone is different.

Don’t compare you WIP to a bestseller. This should be self evident but almost everyone does it. You think about how much better published works are compared to yours and it freaks you out. The thing about published works is that you don’t see everything that happened before. All the starts and stops and horrible prose that was edited out. It’s the difference between seeing a car for sale at a dealer and seeing it at the beginning of the assembly line in the manufacturing plant. Comparing the two is obviously going to make your WIP look like garbage, at least to you, and that’s not conducive to keeping you excited about your project.

Set a pace that works for you. Basically everything is about what works for you, but in this case it just means don’t compare yourself to authors that put out a book every six months and assume you’re lacking in some way. Especially as a new writer you need to figure out so much before you even worry about pace. Fast is not necessarily good and slow isn’t necessarily bad. Just find your own rhythm and screw anyone who thinks it’s wrong.

Study Your Breed

This section is basically a suggestion that you should figure out the standards that your readers will expect from you in a certain genre so that you know what you can and can’t put in a story. It’s sound advice to a point, and certainly it’s helpful to know what the conventions are before you break them, but this is another one of those issues that’s writer specific.

Yes, if you label a book as a mystery and there’s no mystery people will be a bit peeved. This goes more to story structure in my opinion and some writers my find it constricting to even label their work as a specific genre at the onset, let alone force their writing into a certain mold. 

The writer of this article strikes me as a plotter, so if you’re not this may be something you need to look into after you’ve finished a draft to help with getting it published, but if you get stressed out thinking about it before you even start, just ignore it until then. If, on the other hand, you plan everything out in advance, it's very helpful to have genre guidelines to add to your roadmap so you know you’re hitting the right concepts. 

Also don’t confuse structure with how you tell a story. The author gives the example of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked. Two stories set in the same basic world and time with vastly different tellings. Given the same plot, it’s unlikely bordering on impossible that two authors will come up with the same story. (I only say bordering on because someone will find an example of it happening just to spite me if I say it’s actually impossible)

Train Your Focus

This section more than any other is what tells me this Author is a plotter. I had to try and read it a few times before my brain didn’t immediately ‘nope’ out. This is one of those things that I needed to read with the thought that I could implement this in the editing rather than the creation stage, but here’s the jist of the authors advice.

“Everything in the story must work to tell the tale.” Pg 8  
Sound advice but this author is talking about making all these decisions upfront and not working on anything that doesn’t fit into your outline. Personally I can’t do that, but it seems rather rigid even for a plotter. To each their own though. She says to brainstorm but when it comes time to write, don’t put things in just because you like them. Again, as a pantser this advice is useless to me until the editing phase when I need to fix things because I’ll have no idea if it advances the story until I’m done with it. For plotters it may make sense to do it this way. I will say that no writing is wasted writing. Even if you can’t use it for what you’re currently writing, save everything because you may find a place for it later. The same goes for research. You took the time to do it so don’t throw it out just because you decided not to use it for one project.

Walk Your Inner Dog

This is basically a summary and example of her advice so far but there are two things that are new. 

“While you write a book, it’s art. When you’re finished, it’s business. Never confuse the two.” Pg. 10  
In other words, don’t worry about marketability until you’re finished writing. This is a highly contentious subject. Some people will tell you you have to consider marketability from the start, others say that it will destroy what will make your writing stand out. As I’ve never published a book, I don’t have a good opinion, but considering I have an issue with ‘write with the reader in mind’ I’m pretty sure it would break my brain if I was constantly trying to decide if my writing would sell. 

From Idea to Page in Four Simple Steps.

“You need to realistically outline and throw out what bogs readers down.” Pg 10  
Okay, again, this isn’t something that will work for me in the creation stage but it’s something I need to implement in editing. If you can do it at the onset, it will be less work later, but not everyone can see the story in advance.

Step 1: Always begin with your protagonist.   
This advice is more about making sure they show up within the first page or so of the story than saying that you have to begin your brainstorming around a specific character. It’s solid advice so that your readers have a character to be invested in at the onset.

Step 2: Establish time and place.   
This is again for the reader. If they’re wondering where the characters are they can lose focus. I don’t necessarily agree that it’s always necessary but it’s a fair general guideline to follow if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Announce the Stakes.  
In other words, why should we care? Conflict drives story so the sooner you introduce it, no matter how small, the better in most cases. Not many readers are willing to go through five pages of description before you tell them why any of it matters. 

Step 4: Organize.  
For plotters this happens at the beginning and all the way through. For most pantsers it happens at the end, but eventually it does need to be done.

That’s it for Chapter 1 and I think my thoughts were longer than the actual chapter, so sorry about that. Let me know if this was helpful or if you’d rather I be more succinct.


	2. Chapter 2: Mastering Fiction’s First Rule by Jack M. Bickham

Okay so this is an article on ‘Show, don’t tell’. I hate this subject and not just because I’m bad at it. No one explains it the same way and a lot of what most authors do say is subjective. So what I’m going to do is try to summarize this author’s advice and then add on other pieces of advice I’ve found useful.

Alright so this is verbatim from the book pg 12:

The phrase “Show, don’t tell” is shorthand for this advice: “Don’t lecture your reader: she won’t believe you. Give her the story action, character thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions as the character would experience them in real life. Let her live the story for herself as she lives real life, by experience.”

Maybe this will help someone else but it’s got two glaring problems for me. First it’s still vague and yes he does go deeper in the article but I think most people have heard some form of this before. Second, it assumes that people experience things the same way and we don’t. If you’ve read any of my writing it’s obvious I’m not a visual person. I don’t describe settings or character’s physical appearance unless I have to and then as sparsely as possible. Why? Because that’s how I experience life especially in books I form a mental representation of a character in my head, not a physical one and it shows. However I know that other people want the visual, some even need it to connect with the character. So advice that I think is more helpful is to use the five senses. Again this is not my strong suit so I’ll try to get as much advice from other sources tagged onto the end as possible.

From Facts to Feelings

In this section the author explains that school and most work environments do not prepare you for creative writing. You’re expected to give facts without embellishment and with as little personality as possible. You’re there to relay information not entertain. Writing stories on the other hand you absolutely don’t want to lecture your readers.

“Fiction can only involve and convince and excite readers if it lets them experience the story world the way they experience real life: By taking in stimuli and drawing their own conclusions.” (pg 13)

This right here is what I have a hard time with. Partly because I’m afraid I won’t be able to give readers the correct stimuli to form the conclusion I’m going for and partly because it’s so much simpler to allow whatever character I’m writing to give their assumptions and opinions than really go into too much detail. Some people will call me lazy for that, but it’s more than I just never learned how to do it any other way.

The author illustrates his advice with an example saying that you don’t list off facts when you’re observing something, you observe with your senses, which is true.

First part of example:  
“Cloud cover is thick. The temperature is 64 degrees, the humidity is 42 percent, traffic on the highway is heavy, it’s late September, the postman is irritable today.” (pg 13)

Second part of example:  
“What you do is walk outside and see with your eyes that it’s gray and dim; you look up and see thick gray clouds; you feel the temperature with your skin … and relax, or feel warm, or shiver. If you breathe deeply and the air feels thick to you, you may conclude it’s humid. You hear the roar of cars nearby and conclude traffic is heavy on the highway. You see the postman coming up your driveway. Your eyes meet and you smile at him. His mouth turns down, his eyes squint and he glares silently back at you. You conclude he is feeling grumpy.” (pg 13)

I get what the author is trying to do, really I do, but at the same time there’s so much more you have to think about when adding details like this. However this can be a decent starting point to help you think about why you come to the conclusions you do rather than just focusing on those conclusions. Most of the time we aren’t consciously aware of the input our system receives so it can be difficult to break things down this way. My only advice is to study resources on description and body language and try to take some time to really focus on your surroundings when you can. Also try and focus on the things you don’t notice normally. For me that’s anything visual, for you it may be sound or smells.

Get Into Viewpoint – And Stay There!

“The process of showing, not telling, can be broken down into four essential steps. They are:  
Selection of, and adherence to, a single character’s viewpoint  
Imagining the crucial sense or thought impressions that a character is experiencing at any given moment  
Presenting those impressions as vividly and briefly as possible  
Giving those impressions to readers in a logical order” (Pg 14)

And this is the point where it’s impossible for me to be objective. If this seems to make sense to you feel free to message me and I’ll take pictures of the article and send it to you so you can read it in full. As for me, this author makes far too many assumptions and takes to simplistic a view on writing as a whole for it to be of any use to me. The viewpoint thing especially bothers me because I can tell just as much from one character’s head as I can head hopping.

Divining the Dominant Impression

This for me is the only useful part of this article and it boils down to this; in order to show and not tell, and be as concise as possible, focus on the dominant sense. When you walk into a new environment what is the first thing you notice? Well it depends on the environment. If you walk outside and there’s road construction going on chances are it’s the sound. Walking into a bakery it’ll likely be the smell. Yes you want to use details from other senses to flesh it out, but it’s a lot easier to focus on one thing at a time.

Revealing Characters

This section basically tells you to use character actions to show their personalities rather than using the conclusions you make from those actions. It’s the difference between:

Carmen was sad

And

Carmen’s shoulders were slumped and she had tears in her eyes.

It’s good advice and another reason to study body language. Again, try to focus on the important part. If you’re trying to get across a character’s anger you don’t need to describe his hair. Pick and choose what’s important at the moment.

When to “Tell”

“The data are objective and absolutely essential to reader understanding.  
The factual information is so fascinating that it may “sell” the story. (This is very rare.)  
The point is quite minor and we can risk “cheating.”  
Economy of words is vital at the moment.” (pg 18)

Again this is overly simplistic and assumes a specific writing style.

That’s it for this chapter and because I know I suck at this part of writing…

Other articles on Show, Don’t Tell  
https://jerryjenkins.com/show-dont-tell/  
https://blog.reedsy.com/show-dont-tell/  
https://self-publishingschool.com/show-dont-tell-writing/  
https://jerichowriters.com/show-dont-tell/  
https://writingcooperative.com/my-golden-rules-to-show-dont-tell-f4d030eca8c9

And you can google others. Most of these say about the same thing but everyone is different and seeing things worded just a little differently can make all the difference on whether you can understand and apply it to your own writing.

The third link down is my top pick because it not only gives examples but practical advice to find places in your own writing where you can improve.

Again, I apologize for the less than stellar summary but I honestly can’t stand the way the author handled this subject.


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